The Point
by Drag0nst0rm
Summary: Lily had no idea what the point of all this was, and she was beginning to suspect that James didn't either.


**A/N: I don't own Harry Potter. Happy Birthday, MegMarch1880!**

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They'd been Great Houses once, the Blacks and the Potters, the capital letters in Great Houses very much earned. As much as they all tried to pretend otherwise, they'd risen and fallen as the Muggle nobility had, if for different reasons - earning their titles with great magical feats before the International Statute of Secrecy and holding on to them afterwards at first because, in those older and wilder days, the other Houses needed their protection from the wild magics, and then as the world was tamed and the need lessened, because they had power and wealth, and those things tended to propagate themselves.

But industrialization and war and above all change came, even too wizards. None of it mattered really, not anymore -

Or, well, no, it mattered, of course it mattered, but it mattered in ways like Narcissa Black's cool looks of superiority, and the undercurrents that Lucius Malfoy was marrying up, and the fact that apparently James's grandfather had felt the need to sell the family estate, and his father had descended into trade.

And been brilliant at it, apparently, but that wasn't the point, the point was that no one used the titles anymore and only the really pretentious purebloods even knew them, so the point was, the point was -

Lily had no not idea what the point was, and by now she was beginning to suspect that James didn't either.

So she just raised an eyebrow from her perch on the arm of the couch in James and Sirius's temporary flat and waited for him to run out of steam.

It didn't take long. "The point is - the point is - " James gave up and scrubbed a hand through his hair. "I don't know what the point is," he admitted.

Sirius, who had at some point wandered in through the front door and now seemed curious what all the fuss was about, leaned on the chipped wooden doorframe and stared up a long, slow clap. "Brilliant analysis as usual, Prongs. No wonder you got all those O's on your N.E.W.T.s."

"Oh, shut it," James said crossly. "I'd like to see you explain it better.

"Easy," Sirius said, crossing the room to throw himself into the overstuffed armchair opposite the sofa. "The point is, we used to nobility, so all the pureblood families have interbred so much it's a wonder we're not all crazier than we already are."

James threw his hands up in exasperation.

It had given her time to think things over, though, and Lily had come to a conclusion of her own. "The point is," she said, though she was beginning to fear they were badly overusing that phrase, "you've got some kind of mostly defunct title that doesn't really affect anything except what kind of parties you get invited to and what kind of polite insults get thrown at you there."

"Yes," James said in considerable relief. "Well, mostly. There's a couple of other things, but, basically, yes. Except that's really only half the point."

"And what's the other half?" Lily asked. She was beginning to wonder if they'd get to this mythical point before midnight.

"The other half was supposed to be worked up to much more smoothly than this, but I lost the thread in there somewhere," James said ruefully. "The other half is why I'm brining this up in the first place - "

"I'd wondered," Lily cut in.

" - which is because it just seemed like the sort of thing you should know. In case it mattered." James took a deep breath and pulled a little black box out of his pocket. "The point is, Lily Evans, will you marry me?"

Lily gaped at him for a long second as all the pieces - the ridiculously fancy dinner he'd made, the nervous ramble - clicked together.

She all but flew off the couch and threw her arms around him. "Yes," she told him.

James's arms pulled her tighter. Sirius let out a whoop.

"Also," Lily said, pulling back a little, "I didn't actually need an impromptu history lesson in order to say yes to that."

He looked a little sheepish. "Right. Sorry. Do you want to see the ring?"

"Oh." Lily felt a little startled. He hadn't actually had a chance to open the box, had he? She'd sort of flung herself at him. "Yes, please."

Sirius was laughing helplessly behind them. "This wedding is going to be a beautiful disaster," he predicted. "I can't wait."


End file.
